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Thursday, October 30, 2014

Every now and then I have to stop and
remind myself that Doctor Who is, at its core, a children's show. A
family show. It always has been, even through its darkest periods,
it's a show friendly for kids, especially very clever kids. The
writing can be snappy, the themes mature, the visuals gruesome, and
the namesake irascible, but it's not until you literally fill
the TARDIS with children that I am reminded who the target audience
is. It's comforting that I still don't feel out of place watching it,
surrounded as I am by action figures and video games and for some
time now being technically an adult.

Speaking of, I can't
stand children. I really can't. I consider myself childfree, barring
a period of my life I'd rather not at this junction discuss, and as
such tend to avoid any and all interaction with anyone not out of
their teenage years. And then some, usually. Taking this into
account, I was quite surprised at just how much I enjoyed expanding
the character of the class of Coal Hill School. Maeve especially. Her
interactions with the Doctor were quite the highlight of this
episode, and her creepy posessed singing voice fantastic. But more on
her later. And poor, dear Rubi, who has no imagination. Just ask Miss
Oswald.

We did finally get an explanation to why the Sonic
Screwdriver doesn't work on wood, which is nice. Only took them,
what, 5 years? Up until now it's just been “doesn't work on wood.”
No circuitry or moving parts. When you think about it, it really does
make sense. The science in this episode was an interesting case, and
I feel it's a pleasant blend of fairytale mysticism and pulp science.
Usually an episode is one or the other (like the retro80s SF we've
seen earlier this year or the SF Fairytale feel of a number of the
Eleven/Pond episodes). The entire premise of this episode essentially
re-tells M Night Shyamalan's The Happening, but without all the
hilarious suicides and shots of prop fans just off-camera blowing
grass. Mysterious forest grows overnight, obscuring the world and
casting everything in shadow that turns out to be an unexplained
planetary defense system against catastrophic solar events. It's more
solid than Kill The Moon, but far more outlandish than Mummy. I did
cringe a bit at “small human broadcasting to the world” bit,
though. Didn't we already do that in Kill The Moon, and find out it
didn't work then, either?

I think I'm finally getting a read
on exactly why Clara's character is getting more and more
interesting. From the direction her character is going, she seems to
be the Anti-Donna. When we first met Donna, She was vapid, loud, and
shallow. Over the course of her time with the Tenth Doctor, she
calmed, became more rational, more clever and more competent. Clara
started out as a cipher, and we can pretty much discard her entire
first year as far as character development goes, but if you look at
her starting with Deep Breath, she started out as caring, clever, and
competent, but as she's gone on she's starting to keep secrets,
starting to become a bit more careless and cavalier. Overconfident,
even. I have a feeling, starting with next week's finale, we'll see
some interesting events in Clara Oswald's life.

He Is Groot appears courtesy the BBC

A little bit of mild social commentary
was noted and appreciated here. Poor Maeve, who hears voices unless
she's taking medication, turns out to actually be hearing voices, and
by not medicating away this 'problem', she's able to help the Doctor
figure out what's going on. And the Doctor snarls some appreciation
by with a very clear message of “let children be children.”

And
speaking of the finale, I really would have thought there would be more
development on Missy and this afterlife, but aside from a few people
being greeted that have fallen along the way this year, We still know
next to nothing. Aside from she's got an iPad and a vested interest
in Clara. This finale really has its work cut out for it across the
next two episodes.

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